About 595 NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem patients received letters notifying them to a potential compromise of their protected health information after a laptop went missing from the facility in January.

Hospital officials do not have any evidence that the PHI has been misused. However, the PHI contained on the laptop included patients' names, medical record numbers, dates of birth and whether a hearing test was passed.

As a precaution, NYC Health + Hospitals will offer affected individuals free credit monitoring and identity protection services for one year provided by Kroll Information Assurance.

The hospital has also taken steps to prevent a similar situation from happening again. These include assisting with the active investigation, reviewing security precautions currently in place that need to be revised, evaluating additional security precautions specifically for portable devices and reviewing employees' security-awareness training.